A Cross and A Rifle
by Soldier Boy
Summary: Enroute to a training mission, a transport full of Army infantry is diverted to Luna Station by an S.O.S.
1. Genesis

Let's get a few things straight before I tell you what happened. First off, I ain't no damn jarhead. I am a proud soldier in the United States Army infantry. They don't let us fight in space, but I could care less, we get better weapons. See, the USMC spend a lot of their time fighting in pressurized environments. You breach a pressure hull and you're floatin' home. This means that the 'corps uses mainly low-velocity rounds, usually the 10mm round. We, on the other hand, get the good stuff. 5.56x45mm. Can't beat it. Our standard issue rifle is the Army-Issue version of the USMC M-220 Dogchopper. It's got a single, 3-round burst, and full auto setting and fires the 5.56 round from a 100 round dual-drum magazine, as opposed to the Marine's 10mm 30 round clips. Our rifle also has a six round 12 gauge shotgun mounted under the barrel for extra fun.

My 'adventures' on Luna began when we were in transit. We received a distress call from the fueling station in orbit there. Even though we TECHNICALLY have no authority to operate in a military capacity on moons and space-based installations (you can't call them space stations anymore), we won the distance lottery, and were required by law to respond. The distress call was just a looped S.O.S., so, unsure of what we'd be responding to, we moved into the installation in full gear. And that's how it started.


	2. In The Beginning

I NEVER EVER thought I'd see what I saw on that station. To this day, it still haunts me everytime I try to sleep. In all my years in the Army, I've never seen anything like what happened then. We were responding to a distress call. We should have left it alone. Our transport changed direction and we locked and loaded with live rounds. Our first indication of trouble was the lack of updated docking telemetry. The crap they were sending was over twelve hours old, last updated shortly before the S.O.S. was sent. Our pilot still managed to dock. I wish he hadn't tried so hard. We docked, and the sensors said the air inside was breathable, no hull breaches. We formed up, covering the airlock, safeties off and fingers on the trigger. Second Lieutenant Jenkins hit the button, and the airlock slid open. Nothing. Not even a frickin' mouse. I stepped off the transport first. The station just gave off a creepy vibe. You know, like when you can't physically tell anything's wrong, but you mind just KNOWS it. It didn't hit me then, but it should have. If you had sent an S.O.S., and were waiting for rescue, where would you wait? I'd wait in the first place that rescue would arrive. The docking bay. And then there was the weird smell. Kinda like stale lemons. It seemed to put everyone on edge. We moved through the station with full rucks, everyone communicating with gestures and hand signals. We came to an intersection, the captain seemed unsure of what to do. We didn't care what de decided, just as long as we had orders like good little soldiers. He couldn't decide which way to go, so we split up. Brilliant tactical decision. Then again, it's not like I had any brilliant ideas either. Second platoon went left, third platoon went right, and the rest of us continued on. We moved tactically through the long hallway for God only-knows how long, before second platoon radioed in.

"Sir, we've got blood-oh my God......" Jenkins said, followed by a noise I recognized the sound of vomiting through a throat-mic. I'd heard it enough in zero G training. From both my comrades and me.

The link was quiet except for gagging and several other troopers vomiting. Jenkins got control of himself again and continued his SitRep.

"The room's full of bodies, parts of bodies. Men women, children, human bodies ripped in half, piles of guts, blood everywhere. It looks like they've been chewed on, eaten. Oh my God, what would do this?"

"Are they UAC?" the captain asked, radiating calm.

"Ye-yeah."

"Calm down, lieutenant you've still got a job to-"

The captain was cut off by yells from members of Jenkins's platoon.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" someone yelled, followed by rifle fire.

"It won't die!" a trooper yelled, punctuated by shots, growling filling the background.

Someone let loose a blood-curdling scream, a scream that could only mean a horrible death.

"Second platoon, fall back." Captain Davidson said.

"How many of'em are there?!" Someone yelled.

"They're everywhere! We can't disengage!" Jenkins yelled.

"Third platoon! Move to second platoon's location! They are heavily engaged from multiple directions!"

"Roger that."

The captain signaled for us to move back to the intersection and join up with third. That was the fastest tactical movement I've ever seen. We practically double-timed it to the intersection. Second platoon had taken the left passage, which was now to our right. Third had already arrived, and was holding the passages leading to the meat locker. A couple of the hallways had crude barricades made of furniture partially blocking them. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was the dismembered corpses. It was like a slaughter house, only with humans. Blood, guts, organs, chunks of flesh were everywhere. I felt sick and tasted bile in my mouth. Several of the other troopers did vomit, and the chaplain, Newland, made the sign of the cross across his chest.

"Sir, there's no sign of second." I overheard someone tell the captain.

Looking around, I realized he was right. The only signs of them were hundreds of spent shell and cartridge casings on the floor. Then I noticed the blood trails, as if something had dragged them away.

"Lieutenant, did your men make these barricades?" the captain asked.

"No sir, they were here when we arrived." Lieutenant Vicks said.

I suppressed my gag reflex and started digging through the piles, when something struck me. There were a LOT of 10mm casings. We only used them in pistols, but there were probably hundreds of'em. I picked one up, and noticed tell-tale striations on the body. I walked over to the captain.

"Look, sir. SIG-COWs." I said showing it to him.

"That would explain why all the bodies were in a central location. And the barricades."

"Last stand, sir?"

"Maybe. I doubt there's anyone left alive. With the quantity of munitions expended here, I doubt we can make a difference. First sergeant, give the order to return to the ship."

"Hu-ah, sir."

The captain switched to the transport's frequency.

"Prep for launch." he said.

Apparently he didn't get a response. He tapped his radio twice, then told me to continue trying to establish contact. Then it happened. The pilots of our dropship came over the radios. It was a lot of yelling, then screaming and growling. Then just growling. They were gone.

I looked at the captain, he'd heard it too.

"Any ideas, sergeant?" he asked me on a private channel.

I though for a second, before an idea popped into my brain.

"Lipski! Front and center!" I yelled.

One of the sergeants ran up.

"Sergeant?"

"You used to be a flyboy WO, hu-ah?"

"Yes sergeant!"

"Excellent. I've got a mission for you. Can you fly our transport?"

"That's a heavy lifter, sergeant! That's completely different from the helos I used to! It's not even-"

"Can you fly it, or not?!"

"I guess I could-"

"Good. Saddle up boys! We've movin' out! Fall back to the transport!"

The men quickly fell back to the transport, the front men peeling off and holding every junction and doorway as the main body moved past. The door of the station's airlock was torn open. Ripped apart like foil.

"This is not good." PFC Henderson said as he stepped through the gaping hole in the door.

Lipski, Davidson, and me headed to the cockpit. It was not good. Blood everywhere, but no bodies. But that wasn't the worst. The controls and instruments, all destroyed; burned, melted.

"Wha-what the hell could do this?" Lipski asked.

"Dunno, thermite maybe?" I said.

"Is it flyable?"

"What kind of question is that?! Look at them! They're destroyed! What the hell could I do with these?!"

"Great. Just great."

So there we were, trapped on a hostile space station, outnumbered easily 20 to one, only about 300 rounds each, and besieged on all sides by the minions of Satan. Oh, yeah, just another GREAT day in the infantry. I really should stop volunteering for things.


	3. As I Walk Through the Valley Of the Shad...

So we scavenged what we could from the transport, pretty much just a few mags that were left in storage. Then our captain gave us the order that would really start this ball rolling.

"Alright, we need to accomplish two things. Third platoon, I'll go with you will gain access to the main radio. First platoon, you will take the chaplain and move to the escape pods and hold them for our escape. We'll stick together until the last possible moment, then split."

I knew we had multiple objectives, but I was really starting to get a bad feeling about separating from anyone else carrying a gun. So we continued on through this waking nightmare; flank security and tactical movement were the orders of the day. I was kinda freaked out, what with the bodies being either gone or mutilated, but I didn't really have a clue what was happening. So we were moving down a hall, and all of a sudden, the things were everywhere. They were our buddies, the ones we thought were dead. But at the same time, they weren't our buddies. They were walking......weird, just shuffling their feet. And their eyes, they didn't blink. They had this vacant expression, like they weren't even thinking. Then they fired. And let me tell you, fire is contagious. Everybody was rockin' and rollin' and lead was flyin' everywhere. I'm not exactly sure what happened next, it's kinda a blur. Like I said, there was a lot of fire, and we tried to break contact, but the damn things were everywhere. I was shooting and shooting and running and.....that-that's really all I remember. And then I was alone. And low on ammo. Shit.

So I'm moving in random directions, not a clue where to go, and it just appears right in front of me, one of the zombies or whatever the hell they are. If I wasn't scared shitless, I would've been laughing. The thing was standing there, pulling the trigger, completely out of ammo. So I shot it. Three times in the chest. Then three more times. The damn thing wouldn't die! Then I shot it in the head, once. Dropped like a puppet with it's strings cut. Head shots kill'em! I can't believe nobody discovered this before. Now that I knew how to kill'em, this wasn't so hard. While I was standing there, contemplating my new piece if knowledge, about a billion of'em appeared in front of me, guns blazing. I jumped back around the corner and used it for cover. Not that it mattered, the damn things couldn't hit the broad side of the barn, and as long as I stayed in cover, they couldn't touch me. So I, drunk on a feeling of power, just stood there, search, acquire, squeeze, repeat. 10, 15, 20 kills. I caught something out of the corner of my eye and ducked. A big'ol ball of flaming something streaking through where my head had been. That was a new one. Not that I was really surprised, what with already fighting zombies and all. At that point, I peeked around the corner. About a dozen zombies, and something else. It was shaped like a human, but had brown, leathery skin, fangs, claws, and spikes sticking out at random intervals. And it looked SMART.

I reevaluated my options. I didn't have a clue how to kill it, so for now I decided to skirt the issue. Pull the pin, release the spoon, throw the grenade, wait five seconds.

BOOM.

Yeah, the hall was kinda messy. Whatever the thing was, it had both it's legs ripped off and was almost dead. But what it did was the damnest thing. It spit some crap into it's hand, like snot or somethin', but the stuff ignited on contact with the air, like WP. Of course I wasn't about to have another fireball come flyin' my way. I shot the imp right between the eyes. Oh yeah, I decided to call'em imps. We already had zombies, so I figured it kinda fit with my little hell up here. But those damn zombies don't die that easily. They were torn in half, had holes in their torso, were missing limbs, but the damn things were still clawin' around on the ground. So I picked-up a pistol from one of them that WAS dead, and proceeded to administer a 10mm high-velocity frontal lobotomy.

Now, I've read some of the reports of similar incidents, and at least one, the jarh-marine, uhh...Tagger or somethin' said he initially had trouble shooting comrades. My solution was that I never really bothered to identify who was shooting at me. Civy, UAC, soldier, marine, man, woman, child; they were hostile. End line. It ate at me later that a lot of the things I shot used to be my buddies, but I kinda shut it out during the combat.

So anyway, I was pickin' through the bodies, hoping to find something useful, but pretty much everything had been destroyed by the grenade. I stuck the pistol in one of my empty ammo pouches, along with a couple of mags for it I found. I was just beginning my random wandering, when I heard footsteps. Not shuffling, footsteps. I was almost giddy with the prospect of finding someone alive in this god-forsaken place.


	4. Deliver Us from Evil

Alright, here's the SitRep. My situation has gone from bad, to worse, to screwed.

So I just got out of a fire-fight, and I hear footsteps, hurried footsteps. I mention this simply because the zombies shuffle, not walk. Of course, it coulda been an imp, so I wasn't in a REAL hurry to just waltz around the corner and see what's what. So I cautiously moved around the corner, finger on the trigger. I hugged the corner, but it was a right turn. I'm right handed, so instead of just leaning around it, I pretty much had to just jump into the hallway, which I did. And almost scared the piss out of our chaplain.

"Jesus man, I almost wasted you."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't say that." he said.

"What? That I almost wasted you?"

"No, using the lord's name in vain."

"Whatever. What happened to first plat?"

"They were...attacked."

"By...?"

"I-i-it was...big! I-"

"Never mind. Here, let's go." I said, handing him the ten mil and the clips.

"I-I don't use violence!" he almost yelled.

"Well, then you better pray someone else comes along, 'cause you ain't hangin' with me." I said as I began to walk away.

"How can you just leave me here!"

"How can you refuse to defend yourself!"

"Fi-fine."

So now I had a non-com, who probably didn't even know where the safety on that pistol was, following me. I REALLY hope he doesn't shoot me. As if that wasn't bad enough, our conversations were...awkward.

"Do you have a plan?" he asked.

"Yeah. We're gonna get the fuck outta here."

"How?"

"I figure we just find an escape pod. Then we get picked-up...hopefully."

The awkward silence continued for several minutes as I headed in a random direction.

"So uh...do you wanna sing any songs or something?" he asked.

Now, I'm standin' there thinkin' what the fuck is wrong with this guy? But I decide to humor. I'm a nice guy like that.

"Devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin' for a soul to steal. He was in a bind, 'cause he was way behind, and he was-"

"How about another song?"

"Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the-"

"Never mind." he said.

I suddenly heard a heavy stomping noise. Like a bear or something. But I doubted there would be a bear in a fraggin' moon base. And then I saw it. It came around a corner, maybe a hundred meters in front of us. It was this big, muscular, bipedal, hunched-over...thing. But what I REALLY noticed was it's BIG, GAPPING, mouth. The chaplain guy just cowered behind me. He was helpful. So I started shooting it. I put a whole magazine into it. By this time it was only like, twenty-five yards away. So I started unloading with the shotgun. I could vaguely hear the chaplain saying...something. I was pumping that...thing fulla lead, but it wouldn't frickin' die! All of a sudden, the chaplain's words started gettin' louder, then the thing just stopped. What happened next was REALLY weird. And believe me, by now my standards are pretty high. The damn thing started to smoke, and then he just started to burn. But it was from the inside. It was kinda cool. I KNOW it wasn't causa me. So I pulled the chaplain to his feet.

"What the HELL did you do!" I asked as I shoved a couple more shells into the shotgun attachment (in my opinion, one of the finest accessories for the rifle).

"I-I just said the Lord's prayer."

"Hmmm, well it seems our friend didn't like that very much." I said, pointing over my shoulder to the smoking pile of demon.

Yeah, so I named'im. Deal with it. Tacking a name to'em makes it easier to deal with. So anyway, the bottom line is that these things don't like God. Interesting.


End file.
